Thursday, May 22, 2008

Search and Research #100!!!

Yay! It's done, this colossal strip is done! I had wanted to do something big and special for the 100th strip, but really wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I thought about doing a super long strip with maybe 12 panels or something, or one that was just one big image. i decided that one image appealed to me more, and the initial image I had was SCOM, having just watched the Transformers movie, tearing through the library having constructed a body from the office equipment that had been laying around.

I couldn't make that work though, so I decided it would be more exciting to draw SCOM in a robot body fighting a dinosaur. Obviously my favorite dinosaur is the Tyrannosaurus Rex. I used to draw dinosaurs all the time, but it has been a while, and I wanted to get it right, so research was in order, which is what I spent much of last week doing. Anyone who visited the Facebook Fan Page last week noticed that I put up a picture of SCOM in his robot body, which I also had to work out last week, because historically I'm pretty bad at drawing robots and I wanted to do this right.

So anyway, here we are. I usually draw these strips on regular, letter sized sheets of card stock which are 8.5 x 11 inches. The paper I drew this strip on is 12 x 17 inches, which just happens to be the scanning area of the scanner outside my office. So, this is a huge sheet of paper, which will soon be framed and hanging on my wall in my office. I think I can speak for Jason too when I say that this strip has been a delight to draw, a wonderful creative outlet, and great way to meet librarians from all over the world who I would not have otherwise met. I thank you all for your support, encouragement, and kind words over the past couple of years, and I look forward to what the next strips have in store.

It's going to be a couple of weeks until strip #101 due to my buddy Jason's schedule. He is been working feverishly on a big programming project, and has had almost no time to collaborate with me on future strips. He and his family are going on vacation this weekend and next week, and he will be out of touch, so I'll have to wait 'til he gets back on the grid before I can start even writing the next few strips (unless inspiration hits me during his absence...which usually doesn't happen.)

I'm going to post some of my preliminary sketches on the Facebook Fan Page in the next couple of days, so be watching that. Ok, I think that's about everything. Enjoy!

Click this image for a higher resolution image!

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Search and...Research?

Yes folks, research. I've had to do a lot of research for the upcoming strip #100...which I will describe in detail when I actually post the strip. Next week. That's right...I'm just not going to be able to finish this thing this week. However, to tide you over, I've posted a piece of artwork related to the strip in a new photo album called "Extras" over on the Facebook Fan Page . So...head on over and check it out!

- Eli

Monday, May 05, 2008

Search and Research #99

Hey! I want to thank all of you who became fans of the strip on Facebook this week! If you haven't seen it yet, I've created a 'fan page' on Facebook for Search and Research and there is a link to it in the links section of this blog. I'm in the process of scanning some of the sketches I've done for this strip that haven't been posted online which I will be posting over there, and there's also a discussion board feature which I'm hoping to use. So, if you haven't already, I'd like to invite you to come on over and join the fan page.

You may notice that the jargon SCOM is spouting in panel two borrows heavily from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I love all the techno jargon they used on that show! I used to try to reword sentences in highschool using Star Trek scientific jargon to make myself seem smarter. All that positronic, neural net, venting plasma through the warp engines, dilithium crystal chambers, and tachyon pulses...it's just great. I was glad for the opportunity to work it into the strip. Enjoy!